On This Day - Friday June 5

755: English missionary Boniface and 53 companions were murdered in Germany by unbelievers.

Lord Kitchener (Image: Mirrorpix)

1916: Lord Kitchener, British general and conqueror of the Sudan, was lost at sea when his ship HMS Hampshire struck a mine off Orkney, en route to Russia. There were no survivors.

1944: The Cafe Gondree was the first place to be liberated from the Germans on the eve of the D-Day landings when paratroopers from the 6th Brigade dropped on the town on Benouville to seize the vital canal bridge.

1947: US Secretary of State George Marshall announced the Marshall Plan to help Europe recover from near-bankruptcy following the war.

1963: War minister John Profumo resigned, admitting he misled the House of Commons about his relationship with Christine Keeler.

John Profumo. (Image: PA/PA Wire)

1967: The Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt began.

1975: In Britain’s first referendum, a large majority voted to stay in the Common Market – more than 17 million voted Yes and almost 8.5 million voted No.

1989: In Poland, Solidarity defeated the Communists in the first free elections since the end of the Second World War.

On This Day Last Year:Hundreds of British D-Day veterans arrived in Normandy ahead of a series of events marking the 70th anniversary of the greatest military invasion in history.

Robert Kennedy, American senator and younger brother of the late President John F Kennedy, lies mortally wounded after being shot at the Hotel Ambassador in Los Angeles by a Jordanian Arab, Sirhan Bishara Sirhan. The Senator died the following day.

George Plimpton, former decathlete Rafer Johnson, and former professional football player Rosey Grier are credited with wrestling Sirhan Sirhan to the ground after Sirhan shot the Senator.

Following the shooting, Kennedy was first rushed to Los Angeles’ Central Receiving Hospital and then to the city’s Good Samaritan Hospital where he died early the next morning. Sirhan said that he felt betrayed by Kennedy’s support for Israel in the June 1967 Six-Day War, which had begun exactly one year before the assassination.